President Trump has taken aim at college sports with a new executive order signed Thursday that seeks to empower federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Education, which disburses funds to public universities, to help enforce new provisions on athletic scholarships and “pay-for-play” licensing deals for athletes.
The order directs the nation’s largest athletic departments to maintain certain numbers of scholarships for women’s and Olympic sports. And it seeks to rein in the lucrative name, image and likeness deals — known as NIL — that have dramatically transformed athlete compensation in recent years.
“The future of college sports is under unprecedented threat,” the order says. “A national solution is urgently needed to prevent this situation from deteriorating beyond repair and to protect non-revenue sports, including many women’s sports, that comprise the backbone of intercollegiate athletics, drive American superiority at the Olympics and other international competitions, and catalyze hundreds of thousands of student-athletes to fuel American success in myriad ways.”
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